Competition 93

[Bostock]

Yeah, I loved that debug info too!

To be honest I did have one other attack with that character (as well as the 1.0.0 Unofficial pure-slinger I have on ice right now) - Devices. But he was OoI, so...

I never took Weaponsmithing with him because it seemed a waste when I wasn't training any melee skills. I still did just fine ammo-wise, in fact the biggest rebus was keeping my home from overflowing while not deliberately operating in an ammo-hostile way (hard to explain). However it was still definitely a challenge game, as melee/magic are still superior in terms of damage per round - not to mention the easier UI! (The quiver improvements weren't in that version yet, though.)

[NotMorgoth]

I am not finding quantity of ammo to be a problem, but quality; in my experience the only ammo worth keeping has either better-than-base damage dice combined with a brand/slay, or returning.

The other problem I am finding is with weight; even if I restrict myself to 2 inventory slots worth of quiver space (that's 38 missiles AFAIK,) I am finding the weight is enough to put my base speed down to -2, especially if many of the missiles are hammers or axes. (and hammers are more or less essential against monsters that resist edged.)

[Magnate]

The other problem I am finding is with weight; even if I restrict myself to 2 inventory slots worth of quiver space (that's 38 missiles AFAIK,) I am finding the weight is enough to put my base speed down to -2, especially if many of the missiles are hammers or axes. (and hammers are more or less essential against monsters that resist edged.)

Ooooh. It's just occurred to me that Throwing is the one combat skill that works equally well against RES_EDGED and RES_BLUNT (assuming you have both blunt and sharp ammo, of course). None of the weapon or missile skills can do this (though I believe martial arts can with bless scrolls). I might try to build a thrower soon ...

[camlost]

I'm pretty sure I got occassional crits that dealt 500+ damage with throwing, which certainly compares with other ranged attacks. Weaponsmithing was pretty useful in maintaining a decent supply of slays and brands (and impact and returning!) I obtained some throwing hammers, but they're really heavy (3-4x throwing dagger weight), so I almost exclusively used throwing daggers for the weight reason (well, eventually fell blades). Also, I could throw daggers the whole room, whereas (early on) javelins only went 5 squares or so. I also had the luck of finding both fixedart throwing weapons, though the crafted ones were mostly better.

I used mostly returning weapons, which are awesome for a couple reasons:
1) need fewer missiles
2) two chances to hit the monster!
Returning weapons alleviate the need for a huge pile of weapons. I even managed a dreadlord/dreadmaster double kill with one knife (missed the dreadmaster on the way out, killed the dreadlord, returned and killed the dreadmaster on the way back).

Martial arts with bless can hit all monsters also, hence my like of giant necromancers (black blessing comes early).

[Bostock]

*Pure* throwers without weaponsmithing do suffer another risk that I encountered: one bad elemental breath = a good part of your firepower up in smoke or acrid fumes. It becomes really important to know when and where to fight... and to tactically withdraw... and to have enough reserve ammo until you can safely get back to what you threw!

[NotMorgoth]

You also risk losing it if you get teleported off the level...

This is another thing that makes ammo of returning great, as it is less likely to end up lying on the floor.


I'm also interested in how useful you find throwing things other than weapons, like potions, boulders and mushrooms (or even spellbooks.) My experience is that they are not worth giving up the inventory slots to carry around.

[Magnate]

You also risk losing it if you get teleported off the level...

This is another thing that makes ammo of returning great, as it is less likely to end up lying on the floor.


I'm also interested in how useful you find throwing things other than weapons, like potions, boulders and mushrooms (or even spellbooks.) My experience is that they are not worth giving up the inventory slots to carry around.

You are right about that after about the first ten levels of the game, but in the very early game they can be a godsend. When I do try to build non-melee characters, I collect potions of sleep and confusion on dl1 and use them to assist with taking out the dogs. My burglars also use them to good effect in early traps (which I hope will soon help train burglary, if it doesn't already). The nastier mushrooms remain useful right through the game.

It's a shame this all comes back to the scarcity of inv slots. If we were allowed to put all throwables in the quiver (with the quid pro quo that we could not quaff / eat / read them there), that would help keep them useful longer. The quiver might need renaming for that - but it's more of an ammo belt anyway, as you don't put knives in a quiver.

I'd suggest a potion or a mushroom would be equivalent to one shot/arrow/bolt, while a spellbook would equal 5 like a standard throwing weapon (I guess boulders should scale with weight, something like 1 per lb). I like the idea of being able to keep spellbooks in the quiver, for two reasons: (i) some of the higher books do really serious damage, and (ii) there are certain books that I would only need in non-emergency situations, so it would save me an inv slot ...

[Bostock]

and (iii) we'd get extension of the quiver's new autopickup behavior to these item types for free, and (iv) burglary's new "load full count into trap by default so you don't have to type the count, or even type some ridiculous count so it gets forced down to the max, which is what you always want" behavior would extend to these item types for free.

(Actually, there are very few things, I think, that wouldn't benefit from defaulting to max count. Shopping, of course, should default to a count of 1. But surely that's about it?)

Also, it would boost trap-setting a bit, which frankly I think is needed.

In short, I agree!

[NotMorgoth]

I think you'd have to be careful to avoid an exploit where the quiver could be used as extra storage space for potions etc you only want to use rarely but have no intention of throwing.

Maybe it should be restricted to things you would want to throw like harmful potions and mushrooms, and only if you actually have throwing skill (or burglary.)

[Bostock]

I'm also interested in how useful you find throwing things other than weapons, like potions, boulders and mushrooms (or even spellbooks.) My experience is that they are not worth giving up the inventory slots to carry around.

Randomly-found potions are very unlikely to form significant stacks, so yes, they can't overcome the slot problem unless you find one lying around right at the moment when you need something to throw. Also, being ball effects, they all too frequently destroy (or at least become not-an-option since they would destroy) loot or, worse yet, your workhorse thrown items.

Infusion/alchemy potions dip into one's already ridiculously thin supplies of essences. (Unlike chunks, which are if anything a touch too common, I'm beginning to think essences are a bit to rare.) But OK, you can get stacks. You'll still have to be paranoid about item destruction.

They do have great damage-per-pound and damage-per-turn though.

Boulders give very good damage-per-stack and damage-per-turn, but have horrible damage-per-pound after a while unless you farm the lighter ones. I usually use them until other options with competitive damage start to appear.

(Boulders are also one of the most attractive throwing items for non-throwers in the early game IMO, as boulders plus jellies = free XP.)

I don't much like stat-effect mushrooms, as they get resisted too much, and polymorphing I loathe in general. But damaging mushrooms give superb damage-per-pound and good damage-per-turn, somewhat better damage-per-stack than potions (since they recycle), and don't destroy items on the floor... I'll often carry and give priority to a stack of mushrooms when I find it, trying to exhaust it quickly to open the slot back up again, thus saving a bit of my normal ammo (even of my best normal ammo, since mushrooms can indeed be very good).

Thrown/trap-loaded spellbooks I've never had much luck with damage-wise, I'm not sure why.

[NotMorgoth]

Infusion/alchemy potions dip into one's already ridiculously thin supplies of essences. (Unlike chunks, which are if anything a touch too common, I'm beginning to think essences are a bit to rare.) But OK, you can get stacks. You'll still have to be paranoid about item destruction.

I don't have much experience with using essences to infuse weapons and armour, but have played with a thrower-alchemist; I found that while some types of essences were very rare, I had large surpluses of others.

As an alchemist, I found the most in-demand essence is Death, as they are used to make scrolls of genocide and mass genocide, but did not find that great a shortage of them.

There are also some (like Chaos) that only start appearing in the late game.

However, essences of Knowledge and Blessing seem to be almost non-existent, while I had significant numbers of the basic 4 elements, even after using them to recharge my wands. In fact, when I go back to that game, I am thinking of fighting Sauron in dragonform so I can use up some of my surplus by breathing them, which may be a more reliable way of dealing damage than making potions and throwing. (I am a bit worried about the damage and side effects I will take if the potions shatter while I am carrying them.)

[camlost]

I've opened an issue regarding potion/mushrooms in the quiver.

http://code.google.com/p/skills-angband/issues/detail?id=90

Regarding boulders, I've found that I can never throw them far enough to matter, and the damage on base throwing knives isn't half bad either, so I usually buy a few of those and ignore boulders. Potions I don't cart around unless I have spare inventory space, in which case they get a free ride and are thrown pretty quickly.

[Bostock]

Boulders are free and in the opening money is tight - and the early boulders have decent range even for weaklings. Plus, they're blunt, which is superior to sharp early on. So there are definitely reasons for them early on.

[Magnate]

I think you'd have to be careful to avoid an exploit where the quiver could be used as extra storage space for potions etc you only want to use rarely but have no intention of throwing.

Maybe it should be restricted to things you would want to throw like harmful potions and mushrooms, and only if you actually have throwing skill (or burglary.)

You have an excellent point. Even if the code tested for nonzero throwing || burglary before putting them in the quiver, that would be exploitable too with a single point. Perhaps define a list of "ammo" in its broadest sense by tval and sval and check for that.

[buzzkill]

You have an excellent point. Even if the code tested for nonzero throwing || burglary before putting them in the quiver, that would be exploitable too with a single point. Perhaps define a list of "ammo" in its broadest sense by tval and sval and check for that.

You could always base the number of slots allowed for throwing items on the related skill. As skill increases, so does the potential throwing item carrying capacity of the quiver.